Welcome to BYC! I started with chickens over the summer and the people of BYC have been great. Please visit my BYC Page for my blog links that you may find informative or amusing.
You didn't ask, but you said you were going to buy a coop. Be advised that the coop sellers sometimes exaggerate the capacity of their products.
Four normal hens need 16 square feet (or more) coop space and 40 square feet of run space. Strongly recommend you fully enclose everything with hardware cloth, even the top. Dogs are your biggest threat, followed by raccoons and humans.
You might consider how many eggs you can handle. Four sex link pullets could crank out 4 eggs a day for quite a while. If you can deal with slightly fewer eggs, it is hard to beat the coolness of Easter Egg chickens.
You didn't ask, but you said you were going to buy a coop. Be advised that the coop sellers sometimes exaggerate the capacity of their products.
Four normal hens need 16 square feet (or more) coop space and 40 square feet of run space. Strongly recommend you fully enclose everything with hardware cloth, even the top. Dogs are your biggest threat, followed by raccoons and humans.
You might consider how many eggs you can handle. Four sex link pullets could crank out 4 eggs a day for quite a while. If you can deal with slightly fewer eggs, it is hard to beat the coolness of Easter Egg chickens.
